according to swanson, sheehan was "arrested for wearing the shirt she was wearing all day, which had the number of u.s. troops killed in iraq...she was lifted out of her seat [in the capitol chamber gallery] by the capitol police and taken away."

swanson told the brad blog moment ago that sheehan is "now under arrest and lockup by capitol police." he confirmed that moments ago with gael murphy, a co-founder of codepink, an organization which has been working sheehan. murphy spoke by cell with sheehan after the arrest, and they are currently arranging for an attorney for her.

senators snowe and collins of maine, who claim to support a woman’s right to choose, and who enjoy phenomenal approval ratings in maine (70 something percent each), when confronted with the opportunity to spend some of their immeasurable capital in support of their proclaimed principles, each took a dive – voting for alito and for cloture.

we might as well have the dark lord (f.o.a.l)’s acolytes up here in vactionland as the mealy-mouthed, pusilanimous, unprincipled, poseurs of moderation these two have turned out to be. senator snowe’s unrelenting opposition to amendments to the bankruptcy bill that would have limited mbna’s ability to bite a pound of flesh out of the hide of mainers financially devasted by medical catastrophes was instructive of her moderation – she’s quite the political champion of usury, and therefore unavailable to the unincorporated.

collins isn’t up for re-election, this year, but snowe is. the battle will be uphill, given the popularity numbers. but if blogtopia (y!sctp!) is ready to embrace ned lamont’s possible challenge to the utterly loathesome lieberman, surely they should consider jean hay bright, eric mehnert and mike brennan's campaigns to be the democratic candidate who opposes olympia snowe, the woman who lost roe.

we make no recommendations – we simply offer these candidates for your consideration. maine’s a blue state – it’s time to end the snowe job and find a candidate who shares our values.

this year, both groundhog day and the state of the union address fall on the same day. it is an ironic juxtaposition: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication, and the other involves a groundhog."

the state of the union address, a constitutional obligation of the president of the united states that awol hasn't gotten around to violating yet, will take place tonight. traditionally, the opposition party presents a response to the sotu and this year will be no exception, but there will be a new wrinkle: blogging the response.

tonight, when the speech ends, three democratic house members will not gallop down the stairs to get their mugs in front of the cameras, but instead will head into an office to blog their response to the sotu. they won't just say what they think and leave; they'll stick around for a half hour or so, read comments to their postings, and respond to the comments. this is your chance to interact with them at any (or all) of three web logs, as follows:

this is a great chance to address a congressmember directly and know that your opinions will be heard. just please, be polite. these three are truly among the best of them in congress and deserve your respect, and if you are polite then opportunities like this will only increase. (too bad tom delay and bob ney aren't going to try this. there are a few things i'd like to say to the two of them.)

UPDATE: I just found out that Congressman Tim Ryan (OH-17) will also be live blogging his response to the State of the Union address at MyDD.com. Take the opportunity to let these congressmembers know what you thought of the SoTU. They are doing this so that they can hear from the grassroots. Let the grassroots respond.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: And now it turns out that Congressman Tim Ryan will not be blogging the response at MyDD. Sorry.

once upon a time the fitzwilliam museum in cambridge, england displayed a set of qing dynasty vases on a windowsill. the vases were on display for decades until last week when an unidentified man stumbled, fell down a flight of stairs, and turned the vases into the sort of thing that would make paul hayes say, "tsk tsk" on cash in the attic (the original, english version, not that awful american version on hgtv that just grates on the nerves). the man who fell into the vases left the museum unharmed.

the latest nbc/wsj/gallup poll shows most americans disapprove of awol's job performance (54%), want the u.s. out of iraq (35%), and think that congress (49%), not awol (25%), should set the country's agenda.

the only way russert could spin the results was to point to the 1% that gave awol a majority of americans who thought his warrantless wire-tapping was ok (51%). tim did have to admit that 56% of americans had concerns about those wire taps. tim was not happy.

charles roten at just a bump in the beltway points us to the baltimore sun article about scientific applications international corporation's 1.2 billion dollar boondoggle - they made a lot of money not making data mining software for nsa. here's your daily dose of zen, they called this program, which seems to have made nsa less effective, "trailblazer."

system error - the nsa has spent six years and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to kick-start a program, intended to help protect the united states against terrorism, that many experts say was doomed from the start. - a program that was supposed to help the national security agency pluck out electronic data crucial to the nation's safety is not up and running more than six years and $1.2 billion after it was launched, according to current and former government officials.

the classified project, code-named trailblazer, was promoted as the nsa's state-of-the-art tool for sifting through an ocean of modern-day digital communications and uncovering key nuggets to protect the nation against an ever-changing collection of enemies. [--snip--]

meanwhile, science applications international corp. (saic), the lead contractor on the project, did not provide enough people with the technical or management skills to produce such a sophisticated system, according to industry and nsa experts familiar with trailblazer. and, they said, the company did not say no when the nsa made unrealistic demands.

the company was initially awarded $280 million in 2002 to begin construction. [--snip--]

although the bush administration spent much of the past week defending the nsa's eavesdropping work as vital to keeping americans safe from terrorism, virtually no attention has been paid to the agency's failure to deliver the system the nsa said was key to fulfilling that mission.

that means the government has been standing by while the agency has been gradually "going deaf" as unimportant communications drown out key pieces of information, a government official with extensive knowledge of trailblazer told the sun.

another unchristian policy decision by awol and the republican congress

budget to hurt poor people on medicaid, report says - washington, jan. 29 — millions of low-income people would have to pay more for health care under a bill worked out by congress, and some of them would forgo care or drop out of medicaid because of the higher co-payments and premiums, the congressional budget office says in a new report.

we never fully appreciated the work of the old testament prophets until awol’s regime seized power.

for i know your transgressions are many and your sins are great, you who distress the righteous and accept bribes, and turn aside the poor in the gate." (amos 5:12 nasb)

blogtopia (y!sctp!)’s agog with the newsweek story about brave conservative lawyers in the federal government who fought the dark lord (f.o.a.l.)'s orcs on the various ways awol’s been breaking the law – and lost. to hear newsweek and the bloggers tell it, you’d think these guys were joan of arc in a prius. we’re glad they fought but, we’re not going to spend time lighting candles for them. everyone slipped quietly away to cushy jobs- and squeaked not a word until after the nsa story broke.

the rebels were not whistle-blowers in the traditional sense. they did not want—indeed avoided—publicity. (goldsmith confirmed public facts about himself but otherwise declined to comment. comey also declined to comment.) they were not downtrodden career civil servants. rather, they were conservative political appointees who had been friends and close colleagues of some of the true believers they were fighting against.

all we have here is an intra-red dispute. the losers are simply waiting their turn to claim power. if goldsmith and comey had cared about the constitution more than future lines on their resume, they would have been far more vocal in their opposition. loud enough for, say, citizens to hear.

any feud amongst these thugs should hearten those they oppress – but let us not pretend that their losers are our champions.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

skippy was lucky to be one of the few to experience maryscott's hospitality...and she's even more gracious in person than she is on her blog. aside from her ducking our comment about tongue-kissing, she was the hostess with the mostess, and we can't wait for her next big blogger bash.

cookie jill, who is having internet access problems, sends this on jack abramoff. the asspress tells us:

the bush administration's former chief procurement official tipped off lobbyist jack abramoff that the government was about to suspend the federal contracts of an abramoff client, newly filed court papers say.

david safavian provided "sensitive and confidential information" about four subsidiaries of tyco international to abramoff regarding internal deliberations at the general services administration, say the court papers filed friday in a criminal case against safavian.

which could be potentially devestating to the "i never met the guy" defense.

an interview with congressman rush holt of new jersey will be available as a podcast at bluejersey.net on monday, january 30. subscribe to the podcast now and listen to a fascinating discussion that goes to the heart of issues of the day.

congressman rush holt on the war in iraq and homeland security:"i have found no one who actually feels safer, and can demonstrate that she or he is safer, because of our war in iraq."

on warrantless domestic surveillance:"i see no justification for the program that the white house has described. I see no reason to have an ongoing spying mechanism against americans...now you have some functionary in the nsa, or worse, some political appointee in the white house, deciding whose phone is going to be tapped, whose email is going to be bugged, whose life is going to be invaded."

on presidential overreach and whether congress should have limited white house power when authorizing the iraq fiasco:"the majority leadership certainly dropped the ball on this."

on the question of "where are the democrats?":"i think there are many democrats who are standing up and fighting...jim mcdermott, louise slaughter, there are a number of us who are standing up, who are speaking out. but remember, we are in the minority."

congressman holt is refreshingly honest, something his constituents have learned to expect from the transplanted west virginian and former assistant director of the plasma research laboratory at princeton university. he doesn't speak in sound-bites, but tells the whole story with exceptional clarity.

climate expert says nasa tried to silence him - the top climate scientist at nasa says the bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming. [--snip-]

he fell out of favor with the white house in 2004 after giving a speech at the university of iowa before the presidential election, in which he complained that government climate scientists were being muzzled, and said he planned to vote for senator john kerry. [--snip--]

he said he was particularly incensed that the directives affecting his statements had come through informal telephone conversations and not through formal channels, leaving no significant trails of documents. [--snip--]

in one call, george deutsch, a recently appointed public affairs officer at nasa headquarters, rejected a request from a producer at national public radio to interview dr. hansen, said leslie mccarthy, a public affairs officer responsible for the goddard institute.

citing handwritten notes taken during the conversation, ms. mccarthy said mr. deutsch called n.p.r. "the most liberal" media outlet in the country. she said that in that call and others mr. deutsch said his job was "to make the president look good" and that as a white house appointee that might be mr. deutsch's priority. [--snip--]

mr. acosta, mr. deutsch's supervisor, said that when mr. deutsch was asked about the conversations he flatly denied saying anything of the sort. mr. deutsch referred all interview requests to mr. acosta.

ms. mccarthy, when told of the response, said: "why am i going to go out of my way to make this up and back up jim hansen? i don't have a dog is this race. and what does hansen have to gain?”

lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ''mr. president, you may have thought that i said switzerland. they're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.'' then lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.

post-katrina promises unfulfilled - on the gulf coast, federal recovery effort makes halting progress - nearly five months after hurricane katrina swamped new orleans, president bush's lofty promises to rebuild the gulf coast have been frustrated by bureaucratic failures and competing priorities, a review of events since the hurricane shows.*

hurricane season returns in four months.

*warning: this passage is a quote from a washington post article. if you discover any factual inaccuries within it – there is absolutely nothing that you can do about it.

but democrats get raging mad when you suggest this is a bipartisan scandal.

um, timmy, that's because when you suggest that the abramoff scandal is bipartisan you are dead wrong - and misleading to boot. some one actually analyzed the payments made by mr. abramoff’s indian clients and - guess what –

but the morris and associates analysis, which was done exclusively for the prospect, clearly shows that it’s highly misleading to suggest that the tribes's giving to dems was in any way comparable to their giving to the gop. the analysis shows that when abramoff took on his tribal clients, the majority of them dramatically ratcheted up donations to republicans. meanwhile, donations to democrats from the same clients either dropped, remained largely static or, in two cases, rose by a far smaller percentage than the ones to republicans did. this pattern suggests that whatever money went to democrats, rather than having been steered by abramoff, may have largely been money the tribes would have given anyway.

admittedly, the folks who did the report had an advantage you don’t, tim – they didn’t outsource their thinking and analysis to the rnc. now timmy, go write on the blackboard 100 times:

question: who would want to cut a bi-partisan program that increased the effectiveness of child-support payment collection from 18 to 51% and “save government $4 for every dollar spent on enforcement.”

Friday, January 27, 2006

it's not a doughnut, more like an eclair

jane at firedoglake directs us to the ultimate guide to the howell/brady/washpost/comments fiasco: jukeboxgrad's dkos diary, which gives a technical timeline of what comments were posted, deleted, reposted, and permanently deleted, as well as howell and brady's mis-steps.

oh, and, jane, "bismarck" (the battleship) is spelled with an "s", and a "c" (just trying to get a rise out of her).

we've got to get out more. since when are there more than one moderate voice at the moderate voice?

apparently joe gandelman is now being helped by nine new co-bloggers, including holly in cincinnati (oh, that holly! not the one in syracuse) and david schraub. good. there weren't enough moderate voices over there (although since joe is a ventriloquist, we're not sure how many of those voices are really not his).

we're getting emails from readers who are saying that verizon and toyota are calling people back after they complain on this matter. this is meaningful. it means that these companies have pushed this matter up the executive chain and are formulating responses. in less than 48 hours, this is a big deal. intuit is also very clearly aware of the matter.

be sure to use the contact information provided to let tweety bird's sponsors know you don't enjoy a supposedly "neutral" television commentator equate critics of the administration to osama bin laden. last we checked, america welcomed debate and adult discussion (of course, we checked last in 1973).

tami, the one true, on her own blog, thinks atrios was too hard on joel stein's latimes column bemoaning liberals who "support the troops," because, in stein's opinion, that's de facto support of the war, and a "wussy" way to eat a pacific's cake and have it, too:

but i'm not for the war. and being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they're wussy by definition. it's as if the one lesson they took away from vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.

blindly lending support to our soldiers, i fear, will keep them overseas longer by giving soft acquiescence to the hawks who sent them there — and who might one day want to send them somewhere else. trust me, a guy who thought 50.7% was a mandate isn't going to pick up on the subtleties of a parade for just service in an unjust war. he's going to be looking for funnel cake.

atrios named stein "wanker of the day." tami, the one true, disagreed, and says she was writing in atrios' comment section:

i can't agree that this piece makes "wanker of the day". caring about the individual while loathing the war isn't an idiotic position, whether you agree with it or not. quite frankly, when i think of something i can do to "support the troops", it's always send over packages of eye drops. that's what i do. maybe it's stupid, maybe it's useful, i don't know. i do know that it's not glorifying war the way parades do.

after writing it, i realized i was comment number 266, and no one would ever see it. that's when i remembered that i have this blog thing...

so that's it. i think that parades are about war, and that soldiers are people, most of whom are just doing what they think is right. sure, some are crazy violence-lovers, but hey, at least they've found a legal outlet for their aggressions. these guys are necessary for the world we live in (as opposed to the world i'd *like* us to live in), so i send them stuff, but i don't see how some hip hop star lip-synching while standing in the back of a convertible helps them, right now.

so we wrote to tami, the one true, in her comment section:

you saw the nuance that stein was trying for (he thinks he's clever and funny, we don't think he's either) where nobody else was able to.

it isn't that stein is against our troops, he's against the idea of our troops being in iraq, and against the idea of killing foreigners for made-up reasons.

he argues that there's no difference between supporting our men and women in uniform for doing their job, and supporting the job they are doing.

he makes a point that the person who pulls the trigger is ultimately responsible; perhaps if/when those trigger-pullers are sitting before god awaiting judgment, that will be the time to decide that moral conundrum, and it won't be decided by stein, or us.

we personally think they are doing a job, a job that needs to be done, ie, being a soldier in the us armed forces.

it's not their fault the commander-in-thief made the wrong war for the wrong reasons.

we can support the troops without supporting the war, without being "wussy." you can too, tami, the one true, and you are not a wuss.

but you can suss out the nuance in stein's argument; perhaps more nuance than stein himself put in.

not many other people can. it's not going to be popular to open your column with "i don't support the troops."

maybe stein was going for some kind of swiftian satire; if so, as usual, he failed miserably.

but my point here isn't about this tiff. it's about the culture of modern journalism. among journalists, there's a deep sense of pride in the craft of journalism - i just attended a luncheon yesterday with some old practitioners, and they are proud of the work they do. and honestly, much of it is excellent excellent work. and they are keen to talk ethics, and blogging, and print journalism. but whenever i bring up tv, and especially cable tv, immediately reporters throw up their hands and avoid responsibility. they say things like "chris matthews is an asshole" or "don't engage him" or "fox news isn't what i do", as if the american public's responsibility to police the craft of journalism that they take so much pride in policing.

that same standard is never applied to bloggers - are they journalists, are they reporters, are they mean people on the internet - there's endless handwringing about that question, and a deep sense that this-is-a-very-important issue-that-we-must-all-talk-and-fret-abo ut. well, that's fine, except that if you believe you belong to a craft, and there is a self-policing mechanism, you have to actually self-police.

that means asking the same questions of chris matthews and tim russert as you ask of bloggers and journalists. i don't see that happening. and since television is an immensely powerful medium that dominates our discourse, i find it fairly irresponsible that there is such a lack of discouse.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

a majority of americans are more likely to vote for a candidate in november's congressional elections who opposes president bush, and 58 percent consider his second term a failure so far, according to a poll released thursday.

fewer people consider bush to be honest and trustworthy now than did a year ago, and 53 percent said they believe his administration deliberately misled the public about iraq's purported weapons program before the u.s. invasion in 2003, the cnn/usa today/gallup poll found…

fifty-eight percent of those polled said bush's second term has been a failure so far, while 38 percent said they consider it a success. a smaller number -- 52 percent -- consider his entire presidency a failure to date, with 46 percent calling it successful.

you know jay (and all), the more i think about this entire episode, the more i think of it in terms of a failure of "customer service" by wapo.

has anyone else here had to deal with aggrieved customers on a regular basis? i have, in it. and believe me, the level of aggravation (not to mention bad language etc) in the comments at wapo are not even a drop in the bucket compared to the bucket-load i had to deal with daily!! honestly... i really believed that the understandably aggrieved *customers* (ignoring the obvious trolls and laud-mouths) were trying to keep control be reasonable. wapo don't seem to know a thing about customer service! which, i have to admit, astounds me! so, perhaps the issue here is a breakdown in customer service. the wapo customers expectations were not met. the customers believe that have a legitimate complaint, and the complaint has not adequately been addressed. first, the customers were ignored (always a very bad thing to do to a customer!) then, they were essentially told to go away! if i was a wapo customer, i'd be doing a lot more than posting a few peeved comments!

the fact is, it is *not* wapo who is the damaged party here. and wapo so far have done nothing except to make things worse.

i too can understand and sympathize with jim brady's position, but that does not excuse the mess that wapo created and continue to make worse.

the customers want honest answers to (what they see as) legitimate complaints, and they want the problem fixed. wapo is a long-standing corporation. hand wringing and crocodile tears is hardly suitable or acceptable. either they are a professional corporation (who treats their customers in a professional manner), or they are not. if not, then perhaps they deserve to join the graveyard of corporations who failed in customer service.

no, it's not an ironic non-sequitor name for a political blog. it's a site about, you guessed it, coffee.dave, who started seeing the forest about the same time as we began our humble blog, apparently has a penchant for gerunds in titles. he should be naming tv shows these days (formula: gerund girl's first name -- ie, courting alex, judging amy, crossing jordon, chucking up chuck) .

hi skippy. you and skippy the bush kangeroo readers may be amused to know that three separate mock campaign ads linking reps. roy blunt, r-mo., john boehner, r- ohio, and john shadegg, r-ariz., to corruption emerged online today in the race to succeed rep. tom delay, r-texas, as house majority leader. the ads link all three majority leader candidates to delay-style corruption.

"vote roy blunt for republican majority leader," says one of the ads. "because what's wrong with a little corruption among friends?"

another ad says, "boehner for republican majority leader. he knows k street like the palm of his hand," referring to rep. boehner's handing out money on the house floor.

the third ad says, "vote john shadegg for republican majority leader. new leadership, old-fashioned influence peddling."

it's evident that the cost of corruption will continue to burden everday people struggling to make ends meet under the new republican leadership. this is the most corrupt congress in recent history. it puts the special interest of contributors ahead of the interests of the people. it's time for change.

the ads were produced by two public interest groups, the public campaign and the campaign for america's future, and emailed to hundreds of thousands of their supporters today. the two groups announced a joint year-long campaign earlier this month to clean up corruption in congress with a comprehensive reform agenda including public financing of elections.

what a day to actually get work! yesterday we missed the entire washpost online panel concerning their recent comment-deletion fiasco, starring jim brady, editor of the washpost.com, as poor nell, and our own pal, jane hamsher, as snidley whiplash.

also on hand (figuratively speaking, it was all done in cyberspace, where no one can hear you scream, if the moderator blocks your response), were jay rosen of press think, jeff jarvis of buzzmachine, and instapundit glenn reynolds.

[ed. note: with all due respect to prof. reynolds, who has been nothing but gracious and supportive of our blogging efforts since we began (more so than many of the bigger lefty sites, but we're not mentioning wonkette's or tapped's or james wolcott's name here), we wonder why he was included in the discussion of moderating and/or deleting comments on a blog, since he has never had comments on his blog. just an observation, one which atrios apparently already made!]

[jane] thanked the post.com for the opportunity, then added. “brady gave himself the last word many times, goaded me for a response and then closing it before i could answer, despite the fact that i was asking in the accompanying ‘chat’ box for a chance to do so. neither would he give substandial, meaningful answers to questions i posed to him.” and she challenged brady to a one-on-one.

furthermore, hamsher and digby agree that jarvis and rosen were just “filler” and the real debate—the only debate—was between jane hamsher and jim brady.

apparently jane was also helped by all the biggest names in lefty blogtopia (and yes! we coined that phrase!)except one (us, but we were working), including, as she lists them:

peter daou, atrios, john amato, digby and jukeboxgrad from dailykos (who would not let jim brady slide on his nebulous explanations, much to brady's irritation) -- not to mention markos and brad delong who offered their input yesterday, matt stoller who was patrolling comments over at the open letter to the washington post blog (as well as taylor who has been moderating), and redd who was holding down the fort here [at firedoglake].

jane goes on to issue jim brady another challenge:

since i've shown my willingness to play by brady's rules, i challenge him to engage in a dialogue in a neutral playing field. one-on-one, back and forth, no "background noise," no place to hide. we can do it in an email exchange, we can do it in a live chat, we do it over at the huffington post or any mutually agreeable place where the ground rules are equitable to both parties.

i've done my part. let's see exactly how brave and committed to "transparency" he really is.

sorry we missed it! (not really. if you knew what we were doing, you'd be sorry you missed that).addendum: no discussion of the discussion about the deleted washpost discussion would be complete without the comments that were deleted...[ed. note: what?]...three of the permanently-deleted ten of which jukeboxgrad has provided for you. read them and decide for yourselves, were they uncivil? (hint: you hear worse on southpark).

for the second time in a week, katie couric illustrates the right-wing bias in the media. this am in her interview with howard dean, she adamantly repeated rove & co.'s assertion that democrats as well as republicans have taken abramoff money. when dean protested, she got tense and said it would have to be looked into and shared with all the today show viewers.

write to today and tell them that they need to do that, fairly and objectively, and present the truth on the air, along with her retraction and apology for slandering all the democrats with charges of corruption. contact her at todayshowviewermail@nbc.com.

over at my blog: tami, the one true, i've written a post outlining my thoughts about yesterday's elections in palestine. i'm worried that the events of the world around me are becoming too much for me to process. i've started writing lines that i disapprove of, confusing me thoroughly.

i'm so far left in my desire to not kill anyone, anymore, that i'm wrapping around to the right and thinking that if we just kill them all, already, that at least it will be over, and we can stop the damn fighting.

since both mr. and mrs. skippy were privileged enough to visit steveaudio's (and pam's) backyard last summer for the first annual blogger cook out and bitch session, we were quite distressed to hear that fire had ravaged the mountainside behind their house.

rasbobbo at dkos via talk left points us to awol’s proposal for the “patriot” act. the house version provides in section 605:

"a permanent police force, to be known as the 'the united states secret service uniformed division'" empowered "to make arrests without warrant for any offense against the united states committed in their presence"..."or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the united states if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony"

funny, fdr didn’t need to trash the constitution to defeat hitler. but awol, who still can’t catch osama, now wants his own sicherheitspolizei. bonus historical allusion for all you history fans: when augustus set about creating a monarchy, he kept reassuring romans that he was simply restoring the republic.

there is no place in american discourse for such hateful vitriol as your comparison of osama bin laden to michael moore.

last we checked, michael moore had not successfully plotted the deaths of 3,000 americans and destruction of some of this country's most famous landmarks.

michael moore, while espousing a point of view repubbblicans may not agree with (that america belongs to all americans, not just the rich), nonetheless is a patriotic man who loves his country.

we know for a fact that even the association with somebody who compares bush to a famous dictator results in national shunning (the moveon.org = hitler fiasco), it seems not only hypocritical, disingenuous and unfair of you to reverse the bigoted polarity here (liberals are murderous tyrants: ok; conservatives are murderous tyrants, not ok), but it's down right transparent that you are simply a tool of the administration's playbook.

while we're at it, how's jack abramoff these days? we know it's been a while (2003) since you helped him raise $30,000 for his charity "capital athletic foundation" (which, of course, sent less than 1% of monies raised to the sports related youth programs that were the supposed recipients of the "charity") but we thought the relationship was telling, in light of your obvious penchant for disrespecting the left.

by the way, seen the american research group poll numbers for bush lately? pretty dismal for a president that everybody likes.

we suppose what we are saying is, try to reflect more of the actual truth in your reports, and less of your inside-the-beltway opinions of what you think reality ought to be.

holden at first draft directs us to the washpost, which tells us the white house actually has several pictures of awol with jack abramoff, but won't release them:

several white house officials have been briefed about pictures of president bush and republican lobbyist jack abramoff taken since 2001 but will not release them on grounds that they are not relevant to the ongoing money-for-favors investigation, aides said yesterday…

public photographs could damage bush's efforts to insulate himself from a scandal that has scorched numerous other republicans. a vivid image of bush shaking hands and smiling with abramoff would provide fuel for news coverage and commentary, even if such "grip-and-grin" shots are commonplace for most politicians…

mary matalin, an informal white house adviser, said the photos should not be released and that, if they are, voters are savvy enough to realize the images are not evidence of a bush role in the scandal. a top white house aide said it would set a terrible precedent if the president were to release photos from private events.

but democrats said that precedent is established. in 1997, congressional and public pressure forced the clinton white house to release videotapes of bill clinton hosting meet-and-greet coffees with big contributors.

the american enterprise institute has published a ridiculous statement in connection with one of their upcoming events:

as president george w. bush prepares to deliver his sixth state of the union address, his approval ratings have begun to rebound from the career lows he witnessed in 2005. some analysts have attributed this climb to the recent elections in Iraq and an improved economic outlook. issues of foreign and fiscal policy are sure to be central to the president’s address before congress.

in the blog, we'll be looking closely at language and framing, media initiatives and ad campaigns. we will also spotlight progressive media figures, events, new books and films, as well as happenings in the blogosphere. several alternet editors will be blogging, along with jeffrey feldman of frameshop and paul waldman, a media matters for america fellow and original editor of the gadflyer.

what exactly is an "echo chamber"? in an effective echo chamber, multiple message carriers repeat political messages in various media until the idea -- and the language used to convey the idea -- reaches a tipping point of recognition, or achieves a political goal. or doesn't.

fred barnes: “here’s the thing that i think you need to look for, and that is — scalia happens to be george w. bush’s favorite justice. he cited him as the model for the kind of people he’d like to put on the court, federal courts at every level.” [fox news’ special report with brit hume, 11/2/99]

well, now we know what awol wanted

scalia spent two nights at the luxury resort lecturing at the legal seminar where abc news also found him on the tennis court, heading out for a fly-fishing expedition, and socializing with members of the federalist society, the conservative activist group that paid for the expenses of his trip. [snip]

an examination of the supreme court disclosure forms by abc news found that five of the justices have accepted tens of thousand of dollars in country club memberships. and justice clarence thomas has received tens of thousands of dollars in valuable gifts, including an $800 leather jacket from nascar, a $1,200 set of tires, a vacation trip by private jet, and a rare bible valued at $19,000.

Monday, January 23, 2006

blog the wapo whoopsi

in response to the recent "i'm the ombudsman, don't correct me, or we'll just delete all your comments" fiasco at the washpost (which we have been following here and here and here and here, we need all the hits on our sitemeter we can get), some bloggers have set up a new site, open letter to the washington post.

warren zevon was born today. he penned "send lawyers, guns and money. the shit has hit the fan." which pretty much summed up ronnie reagan's foreign policy adventures and the entire 1980s in two crisp sentences.

then there's this gem from roland the headless thompson gunner:

roland searched the continent for the man who'd done him inhe found him in mombassa in a barroom drinking ginroland aimed his thompson gun - he didn't say a wordbut he blew van owen's body from there to johannesburgroland the headless thompson gunner...

george w. bush's overall job approval rating has returned to its lowest point in bush's presidency as americans again turn less optimistic about the national economy according to the latest survey from the american research group. among all americans, 36% approve of the way bush is handling his job as president and 58% disapprove. when it comes to bush's handling of the economy, 34% approve and 60% disapprove.

among americans registered to vote, 37% approve of the way bush is handling his job as president and 58% disapprove. when it comes to the way bush is handling the economy, 35% of registered voters approve of the way bush is handling the economy and 60% disapprove.

a total of 14% of americans say the national economy is getting better, which is down from 30% in december and 52% say the national economy is getting worse, which is up from 40% in december. when asked about the national economy a year from now, 15% say it will be better, which is down from 28% in december, and 62% say it will be worse, which is up from 39% in december.

hi skippy. a third station in houston began airing the new delay ad today. want to make sure that you and others at skippy the bush kangeroo are following the controversy which began when rep. delay threatened to sue media outlets if they aired an ad linking him to corruption. a new ad about the corruption allegations surrounging rep. delay aired this past weekend. two stations began airing the new spot on sunday and another station joined the others today. toby.

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